Maca Web Site Guidelines

10-23-02

A. Mission Statement 1

B. Technology Mandates. 1

C. Restrictions of content or usage. 1

D. Advertising. 1

E. Web Team.. 2

F. The role of the Web Team.. 2

G. Relationship of the Web site and Web team to the Board of Directors. 3

H. Communication with the Web team.. 3

I. Providing Content 3

J. Current Recommended programs for use by web team members. 3

K. Profile of current “day to day” types of tasks. 4

I. MACA WEB PRESENCE

C. Restrictions of content or usage

1. Content or links to content, that is of an inflammatory nature or likely to offend the Chess community and in particular, the membership, shall not be permitted on the site.

In a volunteer organization such as Maca, the amount of work that is often required for the proper attention and care of a particular area of the organization can become so great that it is typically difficult to find one person to remain in that role for an extended period of time. In the case of the Maca web site and member features it provides, an additional burden of timeliness is also present. The posting of results, requests for information and general maintenance are some of the time sensitive operations that are required to keep the Maca Web presence reliable and of service to the membership. In 1997 Maca established the practice of having multiple people, the “web team” support the web site. The members of the team partition the work into primary areas of responsibilities among them selves and serve as backups to each other when the primary person responsible for an area is unable to respond in a timely manner.

2. For all Roles the statements in this section apply:

a) Web team members are appointed by the Board to serve as an agents of the Board.

b) Since the web team members are agents of the Board, they individually serve at the pleasure of the Board and may be removed at any time by the Board.

c) Minimum Qualifications

(1) Must be able to use the table features of MS Word.

(2) Must have a strong understanding of file folders, directories and using File Explorer.

(3) Will need to learn MS Front Page if not already known.

(4) Will need to become very comfortable with the use of a program to do File Transfer Protocol (FTP) if not already so. (Not required for Specific Area team members)

(5) Will need to create a personal PGP encryption key if not already established.

(6) Must have strong organizational skills.

(7) Recommended but not required is high-speed access to the Internet.

3. The Web Master Role

a) Is responsible for the management of the web budget and tracking all expenses, and all other fiscal matters as deemed necessary by the Treasurer.

b) Reports to the Board on a periodic basis required by the board.

c) Is responsible for all aspects of administration of the web site answering only to the board or its appointed web liaison officer.

4. The General Web Team Member Role

a) Is subordinate to the Web Master for decisions regarding the web site.

b) Shall have all necessary passwords and authorizations necessary to cover the areas normally covered by any other team member with the possible exception of the high level administration functions which are the direct responsibilities of the Web Master.

5. The Specific Area Web Team Member Role

a) Shall have passwords and authorizations only sufficient to administer specific areas to which they have been assigned responsibility for.

F. The role of the Web Team

1. The web team is not responsible for the creation or collection of content. Event sponsors and other information providers are responsible for ensuring that appropriate information is made available to the web team for them to publish on the web site.

2. The web team will make a reasonable effort to see that any content provided is presented on the site in a clear, concise and useful manner to the users of the site.

3. The web team shall ensure that all links to both internal and external pages are regularly checked and repaired.

4. The web team shall assist the Board of directors and it's subcommittees in establishing web-related policies and procedures and in providing guidance in the effective use of the web for the good of the organization.

5. The web team shall be responsible for the maintenance and moderation of the automated email lists.

6. The web team shall attempt to protect the organization by use of their judgment regarding the appropriateness of content and defer posting of the content until such time as the board or at least the President shall be consulted.

G. Relationship of the Web site and Web team to the Board of Directors

1. The organization retains all rights and ownership of the URL, the site and its contents.

2. One Board member shall be designated as the administrative contact for the URL and the site and shall have full access to the web site (the password).

3. One person shall be designated as the Web Master and shall be responsible for the functional operation of the web site and co-ordination among all the web team members.

4. As long as the organization has a web site, the Board shall establish a standing committee called the Web Team with a chairman of the committee called "The Web Team Committee Chairman". If the Chairman is also the Web Master then Web Master may be used in place of the chairman title.

5. If the Web Master is not a member of the Board of directors, the Web Master will be responsible to, and shall take direction from, the Web Team Committee Chairman or action taken by the board.

H. Communication with the Web team

1. Board members and committee members are permitted to provide content for posting to the web site.

2. All requests for web related actions such as corrections or additions to pages or any other matters concerning either the web site or the lists shall be sent by email to the web team by way of the web masters address, mailto:WebMaster@MassChess.org

3. All members of the web team shall receive any email sent to the web master address. This is done to relieve the sender from having any knowledge of who is responsible for the various aspects of the web site or who is available to do the work. Note that when this policy is not followed, the other members of the web team are unaware of the requests and unable to ensure that the request is dealt with in a timely fashion.

4. Requests for changes or corrections must include the specific URL of the page so that no confusion will arise regarding the proper page to edit.

I. Providing Content

1. Content providers shall, to the best of their ability or resources available to them (e.g. other people on the committee) format the content in such a way as to require little or no work by the web team to make its suitable for posting to the site.

2. The preferred formats for submitting data are, in descending order of preference:

a) Pre-formatted HTML, ready for posting. (Note: MS Word 97 generates this quite easily.)

b) MS Word document.

c) Text message or document.

3. When providing content in MS Word Format the following techniques should be applied

a) The entire document should consist of tables with columns used to provide horizontal spacing and alignment. Tables when translated to HTML hold their formatting almost perfectly.

4. When the number of columns needed to organize the data needs to be different than previously, a new table with the appropriate number of columns should be used as opposed to using the same table with the rows split into additional columns.

5. The use of spaces and tabs for formatting should be avoided. The use of columns should generally eliminate the need for spaces and tabs.

J. Current Recommended programs for use by web team members.

1. MS Front Page

2. 3D-FTP available from http://www.3dftp.com/ This is recommended due to the fact that they support multiple thread transfers which to date, almost no other programs do. This reduces transfer time by almost a factor of 10. In addition it is very easy to use and has a good selection of advanced features.

3. EditPad or EditPad Pro available from http://www.editpadpro.com/ This program is an excellent text editor and has column editing features which will be of great aid in the preparation of USCF cross tables. To date, EditPad Lite is available free and will work sufficiently for you as a web team member.

4. PGP encryption. This is available as shareware from multiple sources.

K. Profile of current “day to day” types of tasks

1. Cross table posting

a) Cross tables are posted in either the scholastics or adult sections of the site. Once the file is posted the index of available tables needs to be updated with a link to make the file accessable

b) Cross tables are generally come in one of several formats

(1) HTML files prepared by Tournament Directors (TDs). Guidelines for TDs are posted on the web. In addition, a template file for standard tournament information is also provided for their use and is expected to be part of the file collection sent for posting.

(2) USCF emailed files. Currently, the web team takes the responsibility of formatting the USCF files for posting to the web. This is because the understanding and skill set, as well as a suitable program for performing the conversion of the file from old style ASCII line printer code to current day technology is, at this time, beyond the capability of most TDs sending the files. Instructions on how to perform this preparation are posted on the web site. When skilled at using a text-editing program, the conversion of a file can literally be done in two minutes. If multiple files need to be done, they can be temporarily pasted together, processed and then separated with only the addition of a few more minutes.

(3) Text based results. These files if not created carefully often lose formatting. In these situations, the files may not be suitable for posting. The web team may choose to assist in making it post-able or may also reject the submission. Effort should be made to help educate the sender on how to make it more web ready.

(4) MS Word files. These generally can be converted to a reasonable appearing HTML page but is typically not as senders seem to rarely use tables to hold the formating. In these situations, the files may not be suitable for posting. The web team may choose to assist in making it post-able or may also reject the submission. Effort should be made to help educate the sender on how to make it more web ready.

(5) Xenu's Link Sleuth available free from http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html Even though FP has built in link checking capability, it is possible that the site will eventually grow two large for FP to handle it. This has been observed on a larger FP site. FP provides excellent reporting and tools to fix the links however. This program is recommended because it is very fast and provides additional information to help clean links.

2. Future Events listings

By the start of the 2003 term, submission of Future Events should become a self-serve process using Maca’s custom built web based application. At that time, the only effort expected is to be that of creating passwords and accounts via the web teams private interface and assisting new users to become familiar with the operation of the service.

It is anticipated that the application may need improvements or minor fixes over time. The web team is Not expected to be able to do these modifications. The web master may need to arrange for any such work to be performed.

3. Bi-Monthly Backups of the entire site to CD. This includes the Pops and Mail Lists.

4. Link Validation on a recurring basis.

5. Pop and Mail List support.

The Pops and Mail lists are managed through a web based interface provided by our web host provider. It is relatively simple to use. Most people subscribe themselves but occasionally, people request that they be placed on the list.

Collections of email addresses are periodically sent from the database manager for addition to the lists. This is done by FTPing down the appropriate file from the site, merging the existing list file with the collection sent and then FTPing the modified file back to the site.

6. Typical division of tasks among team members.

One long standing arrangement has been to have one person handle the pops and email issues, one to handle future events, one to handle past events and one to handle any and all things scholastics. Since the number of people on the team as well as skill level changes over time, these general areas move around or are doubled up as needed.

1. To serve as a central repository for information that may be of interest to the club membership.

2. To serve as a mechanism for Maca’s organizational memory by serving as an archive for the proceedings and documents of the organization.

3. To enhance the ability of the organization to fulfill its mission statement.

1. The primary technology used to maintain the site shall be Microsoft Front Page. The reasons for this mandate are: